


Blood Moon

by Mirasol_201



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, based on an Info-page
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26215876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirasol_201/pseuds/Mirasol_201
Summary: A group of cleansers listens to some scary stories whose subject might not be as far away from them as they thought it was.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	Blood Moon

**Author's Note:**

> This story was (not originally written, but) published for a chapter-break event on the SSSS-forum where the point is to guess which info-page of the comic the work refers to. The event is now over, so I edited the summary. But then I decided I liked the aspect of not exactly knowing what´s coming, so I still kept it a little vague.
> 
> This takes place roughly 20 years after the rash.

The Norwegian and the captain were indulging in their every evening favorite argument: whether Sweden was alone responsible for their success at cleansing or whether the gods were involved with it. Sanna could care less at this point. Yes, she did not believe in gods or magic, she believed that there was fire and it burned things. But after arguing about it every single night for a full week she was honestly fine with anything, as long as the stupid bickering stopped. The rest of the cleansing-team seemed to have a similar opinion, judging by their grumbles and annoyed faces. Except for the captain of course. And Amba. Though Sanna wasn´t sure whether the Norwegian only kept the argument up because she thought it was hilarious how offended Captain Garrett got every single time. She hadn´t appeared as the most strictly religious type before, so that was the most likely option. The problem was, it had stopped being funny. Like, three days ago.

You´d think a group of cleansers in the silent world after dinner had better things to do than have philosophical debates about gods, like for example sleep, but it didn´t seem as if that would be happening any time soon (except for the teams Grade A cat, who was asleep next to their campfire of course). The captain had just reached his peak of anger.

“I´m telling you kid, there´s not a single critter on this land that one of our trusted flamethrowers can´t take down, and no one needs to say a ridiculous prayer to a god that people were supposed to stop believing in thousands of years ago beforehand! Or sacrifice a young maiden or whatever the heck it is you do over there in your mountains! Maybe they should sacrifice you, than I wouldn´t have to deal with you loudmouth anymore!” 

Ah yes, there it was. The captain´s favorite insult, based completely on not knowing a thing about the Norwegian´s religion. Amba only smiled. That was a very bad sign, this meant he had just given her a pass for the ideal comeback.

“Not a single critter on this land? Then it´s not true what they say about Luleå?”

Amba grinned triumphantly and leaned back as if she had already won for the day. Sanna looked at her in confusion. What about Luleå? Yes, a team of cleansers who went north along the coast a few years back had found a few small settlements of survivors in the area of former Luleå. It had been in the news for a while, they had had a wolf-beast-problem if Sanna remembered correctly, but nothing to worry about. Amba looked at her with a knowing smile that seemed to say “Wait for it!”

“I have no idea what you´re talking about”, the captain said, suspiciously observing the young woman.

“Ah, stop kidding!” The Norwegian laughed. “I know you were there. I have my sources. I heard it from my dad´s friend´s coworker, who worked there too.”

Yes, and said father was probably the only reason she was here and able to talk like that to the captains face. Amba was only a little older than twenty, that made her the youngest team member by at least five years, not to mention the teams only Norwegian, while Captain Garrett was a veteran in his mid-forties who had already been in the army back in the old world. But Amba´s old man had “connections”. 

Despite the “kid´s” disrespectfulness, Sanna started to get interested. What juicy story had made it all the way up to Norway, but not into the lower ranks of the cleansers?

“I was not in the crew that found Luleå, who told you that drivel?”

Ok, he was hiding something. Amba´s triumphant grin grew even bigger. 

“No, not in the crew that found it. In the crew they sent there for solving that little beast-problem of theirs. Rings a bell?”

At this point everyone´s eyes were curiously on the captain, who looked at the Norwegian like a huffy child. He clearly thought hard about his answer.

“Alright kid, so you want this to be a history lesson now?”

“Please, take it away.”

Amba waved with her hand as if she was bowing in front of Captain Garrett. This had the desired effect, the captain´s face was turning even redder in anger.

“I hope you´re all still awake enough, this is a long story.”

“Oh, stop building up all that suspense, we can stay up a little past our bedtime!”, Sanna shouted. More of the cleansers joined in. 

“Yeah, don´t spare any of the juicy details!”, yelled Hedvard.

“Fine.” The captain sat down on one of the logs they were using as benches. “It´s not as if it was a secret or anything. And not that dramatic as you probably think it is either. Sure, not the proudest chapter of our history, but no scandal or whatever it is you´re hoping for, kid.”

A few people giggled at the captain´s attempts to save his dignity in front of the Norwegian. Some logs were moved around to get a better sitting spot around the campfire. But soon it became quiet, since by now everyone was interested in the experiences Garrett had in Luleå.

“Alright. It was early spring… about two years ago, maybe three, when they sent a bigger team of cleansers and soldiers up to the newfound settlements for protection. It was a difficult way up there, I tell you. Just small cleansed areas, mostly just silent world all the way.  
So yeah, the way was dangerous, but the mission was said to be easy. They have big city-walls over there, they said. Just needs a bit of patching up in a few spots. Just needs a bit of cleansing around the edges, to make the trolls easier to spot. We also had a few trainers with us, they were supposed to instruct the people there so they could eventually protect themselves.”

“And the beast?”, Amba interrupted.

“Let me tell my own story, kid! So yeah, the beast. Or beasts. They didn´t know how many there were. It was a wolfbeast, they knew that. Those are always a pain to deal with. But nothing one of these babies can´t handle!”

He patted his flamethrower leaning against the log right next to him.

“And well, it was one of our main tasks to get rid of those. They said it would be fairly easy, means most of the people sent there weren´t the best of the best, but volunteers."

“So they lied to you.” The look in Amba´s eyes was somewhere in between “excited child listening to a thrilling bedtime-story” and “journalist looking for a scandal”. But the look the captain returned was rather shocked than angry.

“They didn´t lie to us. They just didn´t know better. Most wolfbeasts we have here hunt in packs, are incredibly strong, hard to take down, and hard to outdistance. Your best bet is getting the high ground and setting everything around you on fire. So we thought great, with the city walls we already have the high ground. But this wolf, or rather abomination, was different. Still, we´re not at that part of the story yet.”

A few disappointed groans came from among the crew. Captain Garrett allowed himself a small grin. He clearly started enjoying retelling his adventure with some good listeners. When he continued, his voice started to sound more mysterious, like he was actually just a storyteller who wanted to scare his audience.

“So we arrived, took us a month or so to get there, no one got too badly hurt on the way. The villagers were all super busy patching up their precious walls and panicking. I wasn´t the captain on that mission, so I didn´t get all the information they gave us, but it was something along the lines of: weird monster, appears every now and then during the night and somehow finds even the smallest hole in the walls to get in. Kills everything on sight. So we started lots of night patrols. During the day we searched outside the city walls, but nothing. The damn thing didn´t show its ugly head even once for weeks, what am I saying, months. Sooner or later we started getting a bit more relaxed. Training went well, we mainly focused on rebuilding. They had a couple of small towns up there, we worked on connecting them with a wall that included them all. We also cleansed the areas around and killed some really nasty critters. But then-”

He made a dramatic pause. Sanna caught herself moving closer in excitement.

“-one night”, the captain continued. “a very dark night, there were only maybe three people patrolling on the walls, it came. I was lucky, I wasn´t on duty. These poor souls didn´t live to tell the tale. I don´t know how it got in, some say it jumped over the wall, others say it went all the way around it and sneaked in through our current site. I personally don´t think either of these things happened. But fact is, it was there, and I will never forget it.”

Another dramatic pause.

“I heard the screams from the wall, always one at a time, stopping abruptly. Was a silent killer. I woke up and looked out of the window, and the first thing I saw were two eyes. Somehow washed out red in color and glowing, no pupil. But still felt like they were staring right through me. It was hiding in a bush. Then it stepped out. Looked disgusting, like a skinned wolf, but there was this uncanny smartness in its face. Like it was debating whether it could catch me or not. We looked at each other for a bit. When it decided it couldn´t get me it walked away slowly and sure of itself. Arrogant critter. Then it started running at a speed I haven´t seen some cars make, then another scream.”

“Why didn´t ya shoot it?” Sanna had to admit, the Norwegian said what they were all thinking.

“Ever tried using a flamethrower in an inhabited, wooden house? Yeah, thought so. Well, some idiots were less smart. Parts of the city burned down, more people died, thing got away anyway. ”

A gloomy silence fell over the cleansers for a while.  
Suddenly the captain clapped and got up.

“So yeah, then we rebuild and finished the walls, no more casualties. Thing never showed up again, then I was called back home. End of the bedtime story, you all happy now?” 

He paused and looked at Amba.

“Alright kid, maybe I have to correct my statement from earlier. Flamethrowers can get every critter that´s not inside of a wooden city. Good night.”

Not even the Norwegian dared to still respond something.

***

About half an hour later almost the entire camp had gotten ready for bed. Sanna noticed Hedvard still standing at the edge of the camp, smoking and browsing through a little book with the help of a flashlight. She made her way over to him.

“Can´t sleep? ”

“Neither can you, apparently.”

“Nothing like a scary story to make one tired.”

“I keep imagining I see that thing´s eyes everywhere”, the swede chuckled and coughed. “But that´s not why I´m still awake.”

He coughed again.

“You know, you should stop.” Sanna pointed at his cigarette. “This world is dangerous as heck already, no worth shortening the little time we already have.”

Hedvard snorted. 

“What´s the difference. We breathe in the smoke of the fires every day anyway. I doubt your lung looks any better than mine.”

“I´m not sure whether that´s how it works- Ah, whatever, it´s your life.”

He looked into his little book again.

“What are you reading anyway?”, Sanna asked curiously.

“Ah, when I was younger I was really into astronomy. Always wanted to… discover stars or something. Well, I can´t do that now. But at least the light pollution is gone, so I can actually see the stars from here.”

He presented Sanna the book´s hardcover. It showed the different phases of the moon and some popular star signs, some details were printed in gold, the background was dark blue.

“Fancy.”

“Spent my entire allowance on it when I was fifteen. It has this formula inside with which you can calculate when eclipses happen, among other things. I have to admit I still try to keep up with that. Today´s even a total one, in case my math skills aren´t failing me. Should start in a few minutes. Or maybe it already started… I´m not so sure.”

“Huh. Neat.”

To be honest, Sanna had never really cared about stars. Or moons. Or whatever. But she had seen a total lunar eclipse before. Back in the old world. It had looked very impressive. She gazed upwards. The full moon currently looked like a small chip at the side was missing.

“I think it did start, look.”

She pointed at it. Hedvard nodded.

For the next ten minutes or so, nothing happened.

“How long will this take? Is there still something happening?”

“A while. They say if you stare at a clock it will never get later.”

“Hrmpf.”

Sanna sat down and stared at the bushes. The team´s cat jumped next to her, looking very interested at the forest for a while, but then yawned and lied down. Hedvard was right, now that she wasn´t focused on the moon anymore, it seemed to go faster. The moon was already halfway covered the next time she checked. With only the small fire in the distance for light, as the flashlight was turned off by now, the night became darker and darker.

Slowly but surely, Sanna started to imagine two red, glowing orbs in different places from the corner of her eye. But whenever she looked, there was nothing. Now that was the last thing she needed, getting jumpy because of a dumb horror story. Such oddly specific beasts usually only developed locally, and Luleå was very far away from where they currently were. Things that could run fast also usually got tired quickly. Why even try to make such a distance. Moreover, the cat seemed calm. No need to worry. 

She looked upwards again. Now the moon was fully covered, and everything at its darkest point. 

“This kind of event is also called “Blood Moon”. Did you know that?”, Hedvard picked up the conversation again.

“I didn´t, but I can see why.”

Instead of just disappearing, the moon had now turned into a giant, glowing, red sphere. It didn´t really give light, just… glowed in darkness? It was hard to explain. But this eclipse looked even more impressive that the one she had seen when she was a kid. Light pollution seemed to make a greater difference then she had realized.

***

After a while Sanna got tired of looking upwards, so she stared at the bushes again. And two more Blood Moons stared back. 

She blinked in confusion, until her head deciphered the picture she was seeing. These two things had the same matt glowing effect as the moon, and the same color, but they were two eyes. Without pupils, but still with an uncanny spark of intelligence inside of them. And sadly, this time they were very much not imaginary. 

The cat had barely time to hiss, Sanna just to yell “Look out!”, then the skinned wolf with the moon-eyes jumped out and directly at her with an open maw.

**Author's Note:**

> When I saw the Månegarm on the info-page, I knew I wanted to hear a story about it, and decided to write one. Maybe I will continue it one day, but I also like it as a stand-alone, so we´ll see.
> 
> The Info-page this story is based on: http://www.sssscomic.com/comic2.php?page=296  
> (sorry, I couldn´t figure out how to make it clickable...)


End file.
